University improves RecycleMania records

Apr 19, 2010
By Aaron Krumheuer

Ohio University continues to up the ante in its campus-wide recycling efforts.

According to final RecycleMania results, released Friday, OHIO's Athens campus outperformed its previous Gorilla Prize records in this year's 10-week intercollegiate recycling challenge by over 160,000 pounds of recyclables.

Since the competition kickoff on Jan. 17, students, staff and faculty did their part to sort and recycle cans, bottles, cardboard, paper and food waste. This year, OHIO placed 30th out of 500 schools in overall pounds of recycling, said Recycling and Refuse Manager Ed Newman.

The final week of RecycleMania competition fell during Ohio University's spring break. Since most students were away from Athens, recycling numbers in the last week were low, said Newman.

"We went out with a whimper, but compared to last year, we were greatly improved," he said.

Ohio University came in 12th out of 25 competing schools from Ohio, with a cumulative recycling rate of 29.32 percent, which represents the weight of recycled material in relation to total trash. OHIO also placed second among in-state rivals in the Gorilla Prize, with 405,589 pounds of gross recyclables.

"Kent had a chance of beating us, but they simply didn't report their last week's results, which sealed their fate," said Newman. "It's sort of like a late game or season choke, like they did in the basketball tournament against OU after they beat us twice during the year."

Throughout RecycleMania's 10 weeks, schools self-reported their recycling data on a weekly basis. RecycleMania organizers ranked more than 600 schools based on highest recycling rate, least amount of trash per capita, most recyclables per capita and largest total recyclables.

RecycleMania was founded in 2001 by Newman and Stacy Edmonds Wheeler from Miami University. What began as a friendly competition between Ohio rivals has since been adopted by colleges and universities from 49 states, as well as Canada and Qatar.

Last year's competition included 510 schools and recycled 69.4 million pounds of waste. This year, RecycleMania grew to more than 5 million students from 607 schools, and total recycled and composted waste exceeded 84 million pounds.

This year, Alden Library helped boost OHIO's RecycleMania ranking by cycling out old periodicals and digitizing new books. In addition, container upgrades from last summer provided easier recycling drop-off locations around campus. Office cleaning and old records purges further enhanced OHIO's standing, as well as "the diligence of thousands on our campus who live and work here to recycle," Newman said.